Two friends turn $1200 vacation bill nightmare into an app to help other travelers
A vacation to Morocco left two friends with an unexpected bill, but instead of simply putting the experience behind them, they decided to turn it into a business.
UK-based Morgan Fairhurst and Matt Baguley, both 26, were enjoying a stay at a hotel in Marrakech in June last year when they realized they had little idea how much they had been spending.
The hotel allowed guests to charge everything to their room, meaning lunches, dinners and drinks could all be added to their final bill.
By the third or fourth day, the pair began wondering just how much they had managed to rack up.
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“We guessed around the £600 ($800) mark," Fairhurst explained to UNILAD Tech. “That was probably more than we could afford at the time, and it came out to about the £900, £950 ($1200) mark.”
However, it wasn’t just the unexpected expense that left a sour taste in their mouths because, when the bill eventually arrived as a three-page PDF, the pair struggled to work out exactly what they had been charged for, making it difficult to match individual expenses to their holiday activities.
Despite having enjoyed their stay, the experience left them questioning whether they would return, and it wasn’t long before they started to wonder whether they could do something about it.
The vacation bill sparked a business idea
By September 2025, both Fairhurst and Baguley started putting their ideas down on a whiteboard, eventually thinking up StayPay - a platform designed to make the experience of staying in hotels and holiday accommodation more transparent.
With neither of them able to code, they created the app with the AI tool known as ‘vibe coding’.
Fairhurst continued: “That definitely changed the trajectory of everything that we were doing.”
They also began working with Exchange, part of Manchester’s Campfield campus, which provided access to advisors and technical expertise.
How does the StayPay platform work?
StayPay currently has three main elements: accommodation hosts, hotels and local businesses, with it focused primarily on Airbnb-style accommodation, giving hosts and property operators a dashboard where they can manage the guest experience.
Guests, meanwhile, can access information about their stay, find recommendations and request additional services through the platform.
One particularly interesting feature is Stay AI, which uses information uploaded by the property to answer guests’ questions.
The app is still in its pilot stage but has onboarded its first paying clients in Scotland, with plans to rollout its service to hotels in the near future.
What started as an expensive lesson in keeping track of holiday spending could now help other travellers avoid a similar surprise.
Try StayPay for yourself at: www.usestaypay.com